Strikes and Solidarity

Sarah Taylor of the Newcastle Marxists looks at a little known strike that took place in Washington, near Sunderland, a centenary ago, when over 1,000 school children took part in a strike to ensure they were provided with free school lunches. Today, school students are again on the front line in the fight against austerity and the broken capitalist system.

In the past year, the Rent Strike Collective has gained momentum and popularity across the UK, with even the NUS supporting student rent strikes, along with the Radical Housing Network. Alex Sheehan from the Reading Marxists looks at the tactic of the rent strike and the way in which this can be linked to the wider struggle for socialism.

Dozens of UNISON comrades were out in force in front of King’s College London last Friday with placards and banners to protest the abuse and exploitation of cleaning staff at the university, who have recently received individual letters warning that they are likely to be sacked or have their hours reduced under restructure of the workforce.

We publish here a report by comrades from Newcastle and Durham Marxist societies, who have been showing solidarity with striking teaching assistants. The teaching assistants have been waging an inspiring struggle against attempts to cut their pay by a brutal 23%. Support the Durham TAs! Fight the cuts! Students and workers: unite and fight!

On Saturday 19th November, over 15,000 students and lecturers descended on the streets of London in solidarity with one another to fight back against the attacks we are seeing on education. Marxist students from across the country were present on the Revolutionary Bloc, calling for a socialist alternative to fees and cuts.